Iran’s Blind Cave Fish

The Blind Cave Fish is the only natural heritage of Lorestan Province. This heritage was registered as a national natural heritage in 2005.

There are two rare species of the Blind Fish in this Levan Cave which have no similar anywhere in the world. Levan Cave located near the village of Levan in Lorestan Province.

This fish has no sight and is completely blind. Indeed there is no eye on its head. These fish are called as the Blind Cave Fish as they live in underground waters in dark caves.

In 1929 two Danish naturalists, who had come to this region with the men in charge of executing Tehran-South railway project, came across a water pit near the village of Levan and saw a kind of blind fish over there.

They transfer some samples of the fish to their country ….. and register them as Iranocypris. But apparently they refuse to disclose the location of finding the fish.

The British research and exploring team headed by Antony John Smith from Oxford University travels to Kerman city to find the Iranian Blind Fish on June 14, 1951. But after three months of investigation they return to Britain unsuccessfully.

After 26 years he realizes that the desired fish lives in the Zagros Mountains rather than the underground water channels of Kerman!